


follow me past our grief

by Paradise_of_Mary_Jane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sirius Black Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23198968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane
Summary: After Sirius' name is cleared, Remus takes him to the beach.There are memories and dreams and nightmares, and Sirius can't really tell the difference anymore. But Remus' hand is in his, and for now, that's enough.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	follow me past our grief

He stands at the coast of a beach he doesn’t quite remember as water laps at his ankles. The wind sings a song he knows but doesn’t. The world is cold and he thinks it may be peaceful but he doesn’t quite remember what peace is supposed to feel like.

The murmur of the waves is familiar but not. He remembers but doesn’t. He thinks he hears the whisper, the echo, the murmur of water crashing against rock in a violent explosion. He thinks. He thinks he thinks he thinks

“I’ve been here before,” he says. His voice comes out rough; rocks falling on rocks falling on rocks. He doesn’t recognize it.

“Yes Sirius,” the voice beside him says. Remus, he thinks and holds onto the thought. The voice is Remus. He _knows_ the voice because he knows Remus. The memories are there, he thinks. There, but missing. Lost in the fog. The morning is cold and he shivers. 

The memories are there, he thinks, but they slip from his fingers like sand. He thinks he may be lost.

“You went here with the Potters every summer since you were sixteen,” Remus continues. His voice is slow, smooth, and delicate, like the gentle trickling of a mountain stream. “Then, we went on our own right after Hogwarts, too. You, me, James, Lily, Mary, Marlene. We went camping and none of us knew how to put up a tent the muggle way.”

He searches for the memory but finds nothing. Still, he nods and looks down at the water lapping at his ankles. He thinks he sees a flash of red. Smells the stench of rot. Not a memory, he thinks. Just a dream. He tries to shake himself out of it but the morning is cold and he can’t really do much but shiver.

Just a dream, he tells himself, except…

He knew the difference, once upon a time. He _knew_ the difference. Now, he closes his eyes and sees memories. Opens them to face dreams.

_Is this real?_ he almost asks, but manages to stop himself. Remus doesn’t like hearing that kind of talk. He never says so, but he never quite manages to hide the flinch.

“Peter,” he says. “Peter was there, too.” The name brings a flash of _something_ and, for a moment, the fog clears. He sees a rat and he sees fire and he sees death. But, it isn’t enough. The fire fizzles out and the rat scurries back into the walls and death doesn’t come.

Sometimes, there is a rage in his heart that cannot possibly be tamed. Sometimes, his entire body is filled with so much grief that he can do nothing but scream and tear his hair out and scratch at his skin.

And sometimes there is nothing. Just an aching hollowness in his chest that threatens to consume him.

“Yes.” Remus pauses. Takes a breath. “Yes, he was there, too.”

“I remember,” he says, though he doesn’t. Not really. “I fell into the water. He dove in after me.” _He saved me,_ he almost says but can’t quite manage it. The words are bitter and unwieldy. They don’t feel right.

There are memories and there are dreams and there are nightmares. He can’t quite tell the difference between them anymore. He can’t even remember why the distinction was important to begin with.

Remus is silent for a long time. 

All he hears is soft waves and the wind’s gentle song and it _reminds_ him of something else. It makes his chest ache. He remembers and doesn’t. He hears an echo of laughter from long ago and it makes him shiver.

“Do you want to go back, Sirius?” Remus is quiet and gentle and kind. It grates against his skin like needles.

“Not yet,” he says. He closes his eyes and wills the sharp water lapping at his ankles to freeze him in place.

But then, he catches sight of Remus again. Gentle but wary. Scared. There is too much grief inside him, tucked in the lines of his face and drowning in the depths of his eyes. Too much grief. He doesn’t need to add to the burdens of one of the few friends he has left.

“None of us knew how to put up a tent the muggle way.” He latches onto that bit of information, wills it to shine like a light and guide him out of the fog. He is lost but Remus is there, staying, struggling to find him. The least he could do is _try._

What he finds isn’t a memory, exactly. It feels more like a dream. He’s not even sure it’s real, but it’s the only thing he has to offer. “Lily did but she refused to be any help at all, so we were on our own.

“It was ridiculous. I nearly stabbed you in the eye with those metal contraptions. James got tangled up in the tent and nearly ripped it in half and if it weren’t for Pe--”

His breath catches on the name and the memory of laughter dies in his lungs. He closes his mouth and turns away before forcing himself to continue. 

“We gave up eventually. I still reckon we could’ve done it with magic, but well. We just placed the tent on the sand and lay there, right under the stars. You were right next to me and James was on the other side. Of course, he was too busy being disgusting with Lily to be any fun. But still, we were laughing all night and there was more than one bottle of firewhiskey involved.

“You held my hand the entire time. I can still feel the weight of it and…” He trails off because Remus is looking at him, eyes wide. He looks stricken. 

“What’s wrong?” he demands. Remus’ gaze falls away.

“Nothing,” he says.

“Remus,” he says sharply.

“It’s nothing,” Remus says. “I don’t--We should go back inside.”

“Remus.”

A pause. Then, a shuddering breath, filled with defeat.

“It didn’t happen like that,” Remus says quietly.

He stills. “What?”

“We managed to put the tents up after a few hours.” Remus’ voice is quiet, almost gentle. Like a soft breeze before a storm. “We got drunk for a while. Then, James disappeared into a tent with Lily. After a while, the girls went to bed, and I did, too. I shared a tent with--with _him._ You fell asleep outside. James gave you hell for it in the morning.”

He closes his eyes, tries to remember the story as Remus does, and can’t. All he sees is a sky full of stars and he cannot shake the phantom feeling of Remus, pressed against his side, holding his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be,” Remus says. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

He does, though. He understands with startling clarity why dementors exist. Remembering is the greatest penance the guilty can offer. Trapped in memories, trapped in grief, trapped in all the pain they caused. What better way to understand the consequences of their actions?

His life is his penance and he cannot escape. 

But he did, and no one planned for that, did they? It’s fine for the guilty to grieve alone and forgotten, but what if there is still a person left in the world to love them? 

Remus carries enough grief on his own. He shouldn’t have to pay for mistakes that aren’t his own as well.

“I can’t remember and it hurts you,” he says to Remus. “I don’t want to hurt you, so I’m sorry.”

Remus has lived through enough hurts to last a lifetime. He doesn’t want to add anything else to his burdens, but that seems to be all he’s capable of doing these days. 

“Sirius,” Remus says. “It’s not your fault--Don’t--Maybe we shouldn’t--We should head just head back--”

There is something broken in Remus’ voice and he wants to soothe it, wants to kiss and caress those scars and pains away until they disappear. But there is a name, sitting between them, drawing a line and driving a wedge. 

A name neither of them can quite say out loud without flinching, grief that cannot be contained, and memories too happy to be real. It’s been fourteen years and neither of them have moved on.

The wind continues to sing, and there is a memory or a dream or something in the back of his mind and he thinks, _I remember a boy who never let Remus lie to himself. I remember a boy who pushed and screamed and fought until the truth was bare for everyone to see, no matter how ugly, no matter how painful._

He thinks, _That boy’s never known peace and he was never meant to. He knows grief and he knows pain and he screams it for all the world to see._

He thinks, _That boy isn’t dead. Not yet._

“Sometimes I forget that I hate him,” he confesses before he can stop himself. “Those twelve years, I did _nothing_ but hate him, but it was easier there.” Hate was the only thing he had in the endless fog. It kept him warm at night and kept the fog at bay. 

“But now I’m not there anymore and hate isn’t enough to live off of,” he says. “I keep remembering happy things and they don’t feel real, but they’re _mine._ They’re mine and he’s always there. In every happy thing I have left in my mind and he’s always there. I loved him, Remus.” _I love him. I love him the way I love you and I love Harry and I love James._

He imagines there have been many things said about him: mad, unforgiving, cruel, obsessive. The kinder ones say he’s loyal to a fault when they really mean something else. _Possessive._ He’s never been able to let go of those he considers his; not even when he should. He couldn’t fully let go of his family and and he can’t let a rat scuttle towards his other demons.

“Why are you talking about this?” Remus says tightly. “Why do we have to talk about this now? Why are you bringing him up?”

He shrugs, though his body feels heavy. “Why not?” he says. “You’re not going to do it and you know how much I hate ghosts, especially now. And I know you’re not going to be the one to bring him up.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

He shrugs again. “There’s a lot of things to talk about,” he says. “Maybe not now, but they’re there. Do you want to leave?”

_Do you want to leave this place? Do you want to leave me to my grief? Do you want to leave me?_

_I’m lost, Remus. I’m not sure you can find me even if you look for a hundred years. I’m not sure there’s anything left to find._

A pause. Always so controlled, so careful with his words. Once, he loved that about him, then he hated it. Now, he doesn’t know what he feels.

“No,” Remus eventually says. “Not really. But I think we should. There’s nothing left for us here.”

He nods. The waves lap at his feet. The water is cold, but it’s also real and it’s enough. The wind sings a song that’s familiar and isn’t. He may have known what it meant once, but it’s long since disappeared. 

“I don’t either,” he says. “There are still memories here, aren’t they?”

There is silence between them.

He doesn’t startle when Remus takes his hand. The touch is gentle and familiar. There are memories and dreams and nightmares in the grooves and calluses of his palms. He can’t tell the difference anymore but it hardly matters. He has what he has and it’s… Not enough, exactly, but it’s what he has.

He can live with it.

“Then let’s stay a little longer.” Remus exhales, resigned and defeated and relieved at the same time.

_Live,_ the wind tells them, and the fog clears for a moment.

For now, it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Can yall tell I have a lot of complicated feelings about Peter Pettigrew? Because I have a lot of complicated feelings about Peter Pettigrew, and for some reason, this is the result.


End file.
